Yesterday on MomDot, one of our members, Emily from Busy Mommy, was shocked to receive an email from a sponsor stating that in December an employee of hers contacted and asked for baby products on behalf of her site.
The problem?
Emily has no employees or writers that work for her and had no idea who the woman was that requested the products “for” her website. Yet the company sent the products to this stranger to have a review published on the Busy Mommy mom blog site.
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This is her story in her own words {republished with permission}. I highly suggest you read this if you are a blogger:
I recently woke up to an email in my inbox from a popular online baby store inquiring about the review products they sent to be featured on Busy Mom for an infant safety segment, to someone (let’s call her Mary). I thought this email wasn’t intended for me or there was some mistake because
- 1) I have never heard of this Mary woman
- 2) I have never been in correspondence with this popular baby store
- 3) I do not have any other writers on Busy Mom.
I replied to the PR rep and stated that I did not know of this Mary person and if they could send me her email address or pitch, than I might be able to solve this misunderstanding somehow. Little did I know, it really was someone claiming to be working for me.
The email stated my exact tagline and even included a list of items this woman wanted to review.
I then proceeded to chat with the PR rep to solve things. I really don’t understand how stupid some people can be. How do you possibly think you could get away with this?
The PR rep sent me the address that the products were sent to and with some help from my ladies over at MomDot we were able to obtain: a screenshot of this woman’s house and how much it was worth, an address and phone number, Facebook profile and information on relatives’ time in jail.
If we searched long enough I bet we could even find out her shoe size and favorite food. Ha.
Don’t ever mess with a mom blogger.
Most of the bloggers I talked to were livid, ready to take this woman to jail themselves. Here are some reactions on the forum which I was giving a play-by-play as things were unfolding:
“How nice, find yourself a popular mom blogger, and throw yourself a fraudulent baby shower,”
and
“Wow! Just wow! Another thing to make hard working review bloggers look bad. Ugh.”
and
“They might want to open a blog after this and pitch for some new pants, because I bet they are sh*tting in the ones they have right now.”
I was scared sh*tless because I don’t like confrontation, but I had some serious business to do. I called the woman on the phone number I found associated with her address. I think I caught her off guard because she admitted that she received the products and that was her email, but denied that she contacted the baby company. She claimed that a “family friend” used her name, email address and address to have some things sent to her house because she was in the process of moving and that her “family friend” came and picked up the item, but she didn’t know her phone number.
With the “family friend’s” name myself and my team of detectives (aka mom bloggers) were able to track down this new suspect’s address, phone number, facebook page even her children’s names, birthdates and baby daddy’s name.
Long story short.
This “family friend” said that *Mary showed her a website that showed how to sign up to take surveys with companies. She paid a $50 sign up fee and the website offered bonus pamphlets to new members. One of the pamphlets was entitled “How To Get Products For Free” and it went on to explain about how to email companies, and even provided sample emails to copy and paste.
This pamphlet supposedly provided a list of websites that you could say that you wrote for, which included Busy Mom.
This woman was never able to send me a copy of the pamphlet and who knows if there even is such a thing, but if there is- we need to get our hands on it and the people who run the website that provided it.
Lesson to learn: Every blogger should have a contact form on their website or list their official email address. Include any writers you may have and their email addresses as well. Even better, use the email account associated with your domain name.
PR Reps and businesses: Only contact bloggers through their contact form or the email listed on their website. If you receive a pitch from someone claiming to be a “writer” or even the owner of a certain website, go check the website for their name and see what (and if) they have written any articles for the site. This is another reason to develop relationships with bloggers you want to work with.
Final Lesson: Don’t break the law. Even if you are not caught, karma will come back to get you. FIND SOME MORALS. I am so sick of dealing with hackers and people who steal. You will get nowhere in life and you especially won’t be earning any points with “The Big Guy” up above.
** We can all be rest assured, Busy Mom was the only blog she used to steal from a company, because she has now started her own blog in which she is pitching companies**
Cough, Cough
~Emily
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Clearly this is shocking.
In fact, shocking is an understatement. Fraud, theft, and impersonation aside, this is just absolutely horrifying for our industry.
Please know that the company is billing the above talked about individuals and if they do not pay for the products and shipping, they will be revisiting the option of legal action. Those women better be happy they didn’t use my name because I wouldn’t have been as classy as Emily has been in this situation.
I would have called the police in about 2.1 seconds flat- After I outed them all over my blog.
To our sponsors, if you don’t see me CCed on an email or it doesn’t come directly from me (momdot@live.com or trisha@Momdot.com) then it was NOT authorized by me. Even if I give someone permission to print on momdots pages and do the review on behalf of the site, I’ll be involved with the set up for it to assure things are done correctly.
I know of scammy bloggers, but I never would have thought about someone coming “off the street” and pretending to be employed by our site. It takes it to a whole new level.
I need a shower now.
~Trisha
PS please tweet or stumble this. Bloggers need to be aware this is going on ASAP!
This is so scary! I’ve been stolen from several times–I had someone buy my exact domain .something-else, steal my entire layout and all of my posts and when that happened, I didn’t hesitate to seek any authority to get it taken down immediately and I most definitely wouldn’t have been that classy and well-tempered if this had happened to me. This entire scenario brings internet theft and impersonation to a whole new level and it is terrifying and also very unfortunate for bloggers out there who work hard, put a ton of work into their webspaces and provide fabulous reviews for the companies they are fortunate enough to work with.
Wow. Some people have way too much time on their hands!
That is just really shitty!
I finally wrote my own post about this…with my special brand of sarcasm for these asshats.
http://lastshredsofsanity.com/2010/05/beware-scam-artists-impersonating-bloggers-to-get-free-products.html
PS: This new theme of yours keeps wanting me to log in. It’s weird.
Holy balls, SCARY.
Terrible! Nuts! Mommy bloggers unite-we won’t stand for this. Yuck! Will tweet!
Still stunned at the audacity! Tweeted it.
Wow that is scary. Love that you guys were able to track them down. I like the new look of the site, Trisha. Im finally working on redoing mine.
this is awful! i’m so glad she didn’t get away with it!
Might be a good idea to add a notation to every Media page that you do or don’t have employers and what names may do correspondence for you blogs. This is shocking that someone would do this.
I first heard about this through a twitter message. I can’t even believe it. I am so glad you posted about it as this is something all of us need to be aware of.
Blessings
Honey
I just feel so awful for Emily who’s had to deal with all of this. Her good name was at stake and it could happen to anyone of us. Thanks for making us all aware!
Wow.
I can’t imagine someone having the audacity to even TRY that.
I agree with you Trisha. Between the police and my attorney, I would have not been NEARLY as nice with them.
At some point you have to think they would have stopped and considered that what they were doing is WRONG? Illegal? ..or maybe not. And this person has a blog now? um… So she is going to basically get rewarded for being stupid by knowing how to do it now. That’s encouraging. We all got to where we are with our blogs because of HARD HARD work. Nobody gave me a freaking pamphlet.
Thank you for sharing this story with us Trisha. And sorry Emily that you have to go through this. Unbelievable! I will certainly be passing it on.
Eventually if there really is this illusive pamphlet, one of us will find it. Then the shit will really hit the fan. I hope they’re prepared with a huge legal department. Or they are going to be doing an awful lot of praying.
While reading this on Emily’s blog…I wondered what was going to happen to these “ladies”(wait…do they really deserve to be called that??). I am so glad to have read your post Trisha…now I can rest easy knowing that they will be billed for all the stuff. The audacity they have to do this is beyond me. I am really astounded by some people sometimes…this would be one of those times. Uugghh…
WOW! That is just crazy. I thought a POPULAR baby site would of checked that out before sending but I guess not. Wonder if this post will open up a whole new group of Scammers now that the details on how to contact and poise as a writer on a blog to get free products and not get caught was offered. I it certainly has my curiosity of the new mom blog that was opened by this scammer and she now is contacting for herself. I think Pr should know about the scam she started with and her morals on thinking that some how is right.
Wow, that is bad!
Holy. Hell. The balls…they must be the size of TEXAS!!!
I.am.shocked. The things people come up with that will ultimately cause the legit ones to suffer are amazing. To change my email address to my domain name would be WHEW mega work. I have tons of PR companies, company contacts, etc. Maybe I should start now organizing those into a group or something and switch over. Such a shame something like this happened. Gives us such a bad name. Like others I would have never guess that something like this would happen.
You don’t necessarily need a domain name email. Just make you sure you have the contact form and list your official email address and if you have writers, state who they are.
Okay, yea, that makes sense.
You can open a new email that is your name @yoursite.com, attach it to your contact form and all future PR/Blog correspondence and just have it all forward to your main email. It’s what I do. And I have it automatically labeled when it comes in to my main email so there is no mistaking how I was found.
Good idea!
Oh my frig! This is unbelievable! The nerve and balls of some people….I just can’t believe it!
I actually had thought of this just a couple weeks ago and wondered if this had ever happened and what we should do to protect ourselves. It’s one reason I bought my domain and use that email to pitch companies. It still doesn’t keep scammers from trying this sort of thing. Thanks for sharing and letting everyone know that they won’t get away with it.
This is INSANE. It truly doesn’t shock me too much though as there are some EVIL people in the world. I am glad that Emily got this taken care of and I am glad you posted this Trisha. Clearly the mommy bloggers stick together in these kinds of things and it’s great to know that it’s a TEAM.